Perry Lawyers: Cancer Probe Not an Issue in Indictment

2 years ago

Two lawyers for Gov. Rick Perry in his abuse of power indictment said today they have an affidavit from an investigator for the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney's office stressing that Perry was not a target of the Unit's investigation into potential mishandling of funds for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, Newsradio 1200 WOAI reports.

"The CIPRIT issue is a red herring that the Democrats are trying to make float upstream and it doesn't work," attorney Ben Ginsberg said. "This indictment really falls apart without this."

Investigator Chris Willing says in his affidavit that 'at no time was Gov. Perry or anyone else from the Governor's office a target' of the Unit's probe into the Institute.

The Unit was investigating so called 'cronyism' in the distribution of the funds at the time that the incident that led to the indictment occurred.

CIPRIT, which was founded as part of a 2009 statewide bond issue to release $3 billion in funding for cancer research, has been under infestation for allegedly funneling funding to individuals based not on cancer research, but on political connections.

A claim being floated by some holds that the reason Perry was anxious to kill the Unit was because the investigation of CIPRIT spending was moving closer to naming him as guilty in wrongdoing, and Perry used the opportunity of D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg's drunk driving arrest to try to kill the Unit before he or some of his staffers were charged.

"This confirms that the CIPRIT issue that the Democrats are trying to peddle is just a red herring and a phony issue," Ginsberg said.